Single threaded processing systems are commonly employed by processing units, such as central processing units (CPU) and other general purpose and/or specialized microprocessor systems. To increase single thread performance of such processing units, clock frequency at which the processing units operate can be increased. In addition to, or instead of, increasing the clock frequency, instruction issue width employed by the processing units can be increased, allowing the processing units to execute more instructions in a single clock cycle. However, increasing the clock frequency and/or increasing the issue width of a processing unit typically results in a significant increase of the size of the processing unit and a significant increase of power dissipation of the processing unit.